Moore administration proposes $1.3B cut to MD transportation budget

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The Gov. Wes Moore administration plans to defer road projects across the state as part of a roughly 7% cut to its six-year transportation budget, according to a draft of the plan released Tuesday.

Transportation officials, led by Secretary Paul Wiedefeld, have proposed delaying construction for 16 state highway projects, deferring some sidewalk repairs and intersection improvements, and cutting from state-of-good repair funding to maintain state-owned and operated roads, transit and aviation infrastructure.

The cuts are expected to fill a $1.3 billion gap in the state’s $18.9 billion six-year transportation budget.

“If they’re not under construction, we’re not starting them,” Wiedefeld said Friday in a video call in which he briefed reporters about the plan. “Then we slow down, in effect, projects that are into the future, larger projects that we want to construct, we have to slow those down in terms of the process to get them to construction until we have available dollars.”

The Maryland Department of Transportation also plans to postpone its goal of having a bus fleet solely comprising zero-emission vehicles. The state will continue to purchase electric buses, but considering that they can be almost twice as expensive as clean-diesel vehicles, it will do so at a slower pace.

Costs associated with rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge that fall to the state will be in the separate budget of the Maryland Transportation Authority, an independent state agency that oversees toll facilities, Wiedefeld said.

The department’s operating costs regularly outpace its revenue growth, but recent supply chain disruptions, the end of federal pandemic-era relief funding, rises in inflation and construction costs, and fewer federal dollars to match state spending have exacerbated its annual shortfalls.

Declining revenue from taxes paid on gasoline with the rise of the electric-vehicle market have especially hurt state and local transportation budgets.

State lawmakers last session passed fees to infuse about $1.8 billion into the budget over the next six years, which included implementing a vehicle registration fee based on weight, an electric vehicle surcharge, ride-hailing fees and higher fines for speeding in work zones.

But the shortfall is expected to continue growing as revenue declines and costs rise further.

The department cut its operating budget by 8% this fiscal year, but Wiedefeld said that officials are planning to avoid further reductions to day-to-day expenses.

The secretary said the department focused on what projects could be deferred or cut to avoid trimming from parts of the budget that pay for day-to-day operations and salaries for people that repair roads, drive and maintain buses and rail cars, and work in other services.

Despite the high bar for new projects to receive funding, the department has budgeted nearly $151 million for the east-west Baltimore Red Line, a top priority for the governor.

Officials hope the investment will help the state compete for and leverage federal funding to cover a substantial amount of the estimated $3.2 billion to $7.2 billion project.

The department’s budget plan also includes funding to continue the Purple Line, a 16-mile, 21-station light rail system approved in 2016 to connect Bethesda and New Carrollton.

Cost overruns and delays have driven the project’s 30-year price tag from $5.6 billion to $9.9 billion.

After publishing the draft Consolidated Transportation Program, department officials and staff members will begin traveling to each of the state’s 24 jurisdictions to meet with county and city officials.

The department’s final budget will be subject to approval from the legislature.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the department’s budget would decrease state-of-good repair funding for local governments. The funding will increase, in line with state statute. The department plans to cut state-of-good repair funding for state-owned and operated infrastructure.

This story has been updated.